Reviews
October 26, 2009
Returning to Ilium: Unlatching the Vonnegut Vault 2
by Andrew Saikali
Two-and-a-half years after Vonnegut’s death, Look at the Birdie offers an opportunity to be in the presence of his wit – whether a friendly wink or some darker satire.
October 19, 2009
Reading about Pictures: Michael Kimmelman’s Portraits 1
by Samantha Peale
Any detail one might seek – a name, a face, a room, a shadow, an era, a feeling or the mere hint of one – exists in paint and it’s all available, for pleasure and plunder.
October 8, 2009
The More They Stay the Same: William Manchester’s The Death of a President 2
by Lydia Kiesling
The Death of a President, unsurprisingly, is pure hagiography, but that’s actually the large part of its charm.
September 30, 2009
Top 20 Alternative: Manjushree Thapa’s The Tutor of History 5
by Sonya Chung
There is certainly something to be said for heady novels written by women, when so much of “women’s fiction” is about inner emotional lives and domestic relationships. But it does make me ask the question of why we write and why we read.
September 28, 2009
The Impish Delight of Edward Gorey 2
by Bezalel Stern
Two assumptions are often made about the magnificent writer and illustrator Edward Gorey. First, that he is British. Second, that he is long dead.
September 15, 2009
Forgotten Visionary: The Art of Charles Burchfield 2
by Buzz Poole
Burchfield died in 1967, just as the word “psychedelic” was entering the cultural lexicon, but his paintings quake with hallucinatory glory that has nothing to do with politics or culture.
